Wearable Linux: Notes from the Field

Business Now Embracing Wearable Linux

May 22, 2000

By
Michael Hall

The 495 Beltway around Washington is nothing to
trifle with during the noon rush.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic, ugly driving, stick and
move. I don't know if I saw or felt the Mercedes
that nearly got me in the middle of a hasty lane
change: I just know that I knew to swerve, and
managed to glimpse a ton of silver steel hurtling
past in the lane formerly known as "mine."

That's the kind of incident it's hard to work into any sort of narrative outside the normal war stories people from the bucolic environs of Central Virginia tell
when they return from the big city. Unless it
ties in neatly with technology's current Big
Thing: embedded systems, and, freshly emerged
from the hardware-hacker ghetto: wearable
computing. Throw in the fact that a
penguin-loving Canadian has the answer to all my
driving worries, and that near-death experience
on the mean highways of the capital turns into a
swell lead.

Xybernaut Corp. is serious about
bringing the wearable computer to the corporate
world. More appropriately, they're interested in
bringing the wearable computer to anywhere people
with corporate budgets will pay for them. A quick
glance over their backgrounder tells the story:
wearable computers might represent $1.5 billion
in market share by the end of this year.
Xybernaut imagines a world where computers and,
by extension, information, are ubiquitous and
connected. Maybe even more key to Xybernaut's
vision: these ubiquitous computers are useable by
everybody.

With a vision for computing that puts a
wearable on every laborer's belt, it makes good
sense that Xybernaut would sponsor the Fifth
Annual International Conference on Wearable
Computing. Considering how filled the trade press
is with news of the Linux explosion in embedded
systems, it made good sense for me to be there to
see where Tux might be turning up in this new
industry.

I remembered the first time I ever came across
a wearable enthusiast's homepage: picture upon
picture of a very serious-looking person peering
out from behind 20 pounds of goggles and gear. If
any area of computing seems matched to the Linux
spirit, it's that older generation of wearable
enthusiasts with their hacked and duct-taped gear
and their tales of flipping down their video
visor over both eyes and going "completely
mediated."

The sight of the Ritz-Carlton, where the
conference was held, quickly convinced me that
this wasn't likely going to be a cozy gathering
of hobbyists from the strange intersection of
homebrew computing and any episode of Star Trek
with Borg in it. Comforted that the socks I'd
picked to wear with my Birkenstocks were clean, I
braced myself for a long day of weaving in and
out of a crowd, hoping to find that one garrulous
Linux enthusiast who'd make my story.